The Diary of a Suppressed Mind

fuck. (Reply)

Well, yes, mother, thank you ever so much for reminding me why I can't generalise by saying my family supports me.

You who read this at all already know that my aunt didn't support me at all, then started to, and now does in every area that does not involve her kid. I may have misunderstood that bit, but I'll get to that in a minute.What happened earlier, briefly: my little cousin asked the house at large how to spell my name. She still uses my legal name. My aunt sort of giggled, and said, "J... kidding." I said "I wish." So she suggested to my cousin that they start calling me "CJ"-- because my uncle started that, to try and wrap his head around it, and I like the idea (and it's kind of funny, to be honest)-- and my cousin started freaking out. "I don't want to call her that" and all that. Didn't make me feel particularly awesome, but that might've been the reason Auntie was holding back on the whole thing with her daughter.

Anyway.

I tell my mother this, and she tells me I'm taking it personally, she's only six, I can't honestly expect that she'd understand. I tried to explain that that wasn't the point. I obviously don't expect her to understand; we didn't explain anything, so there's nothing for her to understand.She continued to repeat those same three things, and that a name is one with the person at that age. I also know a friend of mine in first grade went by three different nicknames in as many months, and I never had a problem keeping up with it. So I asked her, "Seriously, was I not six when I was six?" And she told me that no, I was ten when I was six and gave me evidence that I was mentally almost twice my physical age. Way to take a literal question figuratively.By this point I was getting frustrated, and I told her I wasn't angry or anything, I was just disappointed. She repeated all the above crap. I just got fed up and said, "okay, look, let me show you part of the reason I'm disappointed." And I pulled out my nook. She proceeded to ignore and walk away from me, so out of frustration, I said "or not."

And then she started on me for getting pissed at her. I wasn't pissed, I was frustrated, and she wasn't listening. Oh yes, and there was beer involved. Naturally.

The child I babysit sometimes is 5 years old. Last time I went to take care of him I noticed he has this awesome painting of the moon in his bedroom. He told me his mothers friend painted it. After he told me the artists name he then explained to me “She used to be a boy but she didn’t feel good so now she just takes medicine and it helps her to be a girl. She feels better”

It’s literally that easy to explain it to kids.

And there are other precedents; there was one tumblr post I read about a child politely correcting a teacher about their uncle's gender (because the teacher, not knowing, called him "miss"). I figured, hey, I've got a really smart little cousin. If these kids that are younger than her have no problem with it, why would she?

But she has an issue with a nickname. This is why I'm disappointed. Obviously I do not hold it against her. She's six. I'm just disappointed.

On the other hand, it would help if, when I talk to my mother, she would listen to what I'm saying, not what she seems to want to hear.